Umma

Umma can be an interesting study of motherhood and generational trauma with a dash of a touch of folk horror. After a promising start, alas Iris K. Shim is unable to maintain the tension or the emotional aspect it's direly in need throughout the rest of the film. In the end, it presented a rather dull, if not bland, third act.

It seems like the film's modus operandi was to make statements on childrearing. Specifically made for those parents who are overbearingly conservative about their children, so much so that they even refuse to listen to their kids' wishes, let alone lend an ear to what other people say.

As creators, they tried to put their message out in the open, an important one as well and to tell you the truth, I see nothing wrong in that. However, I also do believe that as a filmmaker you bear certain responsibilities, some obligations one of which is to stay loyal to the genre or the type of content you are making.

"Umma" was meant to be a Horror right? In any case that was the impression, I've got from the trailers! If you wanna have social commentary, and symbolic insinuations in your film that's fine but you got to stick to your promise first! At the end of the day, What do people expect from a Horror feature? All they want is to be terrified, to get the chills. So if that particular wish remains unattended, I don't see why should it be marketed as horror in the first place then!

I hadn't even heard about the 2022 horror drama mystery "Umma" prior to sitting down to watch it. But I have to say that I found the movie's cover/poster to be interesting, and the synopsis was adequate. But of course with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I had to watch it.

Writer and director Iris K. Shim managed to put together an adequate enough storyline and script for "Umma". It wasn't a particularly outstanding or overly memorable movie experience though. Sure, it was watchable, and it was a nice mixture of Korean and Western cultures.

For a horror movie then I found "Umma" to be somewhat stale and slow paced. It wasn't particularly scary, and for a life-long horror fan, then "Umma" was essentially just a stroll in the park. "Umma" is focusing more of the drama aspects of the story than it does the horror.

Visually then you are not in for anything grand or impressive. But then again, "Umma" is not a movie that is particularly reliant on special effects and CGI. It had a little bit of special effects, of course, and it looked adequate enough. But you're not in for a spectacular show of special effects here.

Now, I am not really a fan of Sandra Oh, but she performed well enough in the movie. I wasn't familiar with actress Fivel Stewart, but she put on a great performance in the movie alongside the likes of Sandra Oh and Dermot Mulroney.

Sure, "Umma" was watchable and enjoyable enough for a single viewing. But that was essentially also it. This is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time, nor is it a movie that is at the top of movies that I would recommend you sit down to watch if you enjoy horror movies.

My rating of "Umma" lands on a somewhat generic five out of ten stars.

I love Sandra Oh, and I love Korean horror films. I thought that this was going to be a match made in heaven, but honestly calling it a horror movie is almost offensive.

Umma is predictable, boring more times than not, and all around just a lame attempt at something that could be amazing.

What happened? The first half of the movie was so solid, interesting story, good acting, beautiful cinematography, great chemistry between the two leads, then the second the daughter came out of the basement and questioned her mother, the dialogue became very clunky and unnatural.

We were then confronted with some very unscary CGI and all the promise the film once held just fizzled away.

There was definitely a much better film in here somewhere. Such a shame.